Review - GeoVPS, a VPS hosting company.
It's another rainy day in Vancouver and I am excited to be reviewing a new VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting company, GeoVPS.
GeoVPS is a Layerboom entity, and is powered by their VPS hosting platform technology. I have been following Layerboom and their progress for quite some time, a Vancouver start-up that builds VPS provisioning and hardware management tools for hosting companies. GeoVPS runs on dedicated servers at Peer1 in San Antonio, Texas. I would like to note that GeoVPS is still in beta and is the first to use the Layerboom platform.
GeoVPS is still in beta, so I had to subscribe to the mailing list for an account and discount code. A week later, I found account credentials and a discount code sitting in my email inbox. Their website is very basic and easy to navigate, signing into my account was a breeze. After updating my payment information I immediately found my way to the VPS control panel (Dashboard). GeoVPS currently offers three plans and a limited selection of Linux distributions.
The control panel is absolutely fantastic! I found it to be very clean and responsive, finding my way around without any trouble. I really like simple, however, I would like to see a little more machine information such as used bandwidth and disk space. The AJAX console that GeoVPS provides works great, giving shell access through the web browser. To start, I created a Ubuntu 9.04 VPS, waiting only 3 minutes for it to be provisioned and have the root password emailed to me. First thing I noticed is that the Linux server images are not barebones, having many unnecessary system processes running. I would have preferred the server images to be more stripped down by default, using fewer resources (memory as well as disk space).
The servers were very responsive, using the base 256MB plan the system reported four CPU cores. I found installing software to be slow using the Linux distribution software repositories due to the fact that there wasn't a local mirror. Overall I was very pleased with the system performance.
GeoVPS provides a support system, hosted by Zendesk. To test out the ticket response time on a Sunday morning, I fired off a trouble ticket. It took a full hour to get a reply, however, it is a beta product, small team, and early Sunday morning. I would have liked a large "Back to control Panel" button.
Notes:
Pros
- Fantastic control panel
- Clean and responsive
- Easy to navigate
- First AJAX console that I enjoyed
- Great performance
- Solid host machines
- Excellent network connectivity
- Zendesk support system
- Layerboom is a Canadian company!
Cons
- Limited plan selection (beta)
- Limited selection of Linux distributions (beta)
- Would like more system details on control panel
- Used monthly bandwidth
- Used disk space
- Linux system images are a little bloated
- No local Linux distribution repository mirrors
- Would have liked a button to return to the control panel from the support system
- No DNS service provided
GeoVPS is still in beta, so I do not recommend running mission critical applications using their servers. Overall my experience with GeoVPS is a good one, and I will be waiting for the beta label to be peeled off. If I ever was involved in creating a hosting company, I would look into using Layerboom.
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